2010 Fall – MIS5001-402

Here’s the presentation order for this evening.

1. Adobe: Eric, My, Nicole, Patty
2. CareFusion: Dennis, Justin, Kristin, Max
3. Pharma ERP: Harry, Mandy, Sadia, William
4. Desktop Management: Danai, Jack, Nahmoo, Tom

See you soon.

This is our concluding discussion question for this course. Thank you all for your thoughtful and insightful answers all semester!

The purpose of this week’s question is to help you prepare for the final exam.

In one or two sentences, what would you summarize as a key “take-away” that you’ve learned from this course this semester?

Slides from class

Final exam format

—Take-home: 5PM posted to class website, 8PM due via email —

Open-note (including course blog): no other outside assistance or Internet assistance

4 short answer questions

• Multiple bullet point answer or up to 1 paragraph answer
• ~ 60% of grade (4 x 15% each)
• Example: “What are 3 examples of a good time to fly a kite? What are 3 times when it is a bad idea?” —

1 essay question

• multi-part question or more involved question ¡mutli-paragraph answer required
• pick from 2 or 3 choices
• ~ 40% of grade
• Example: “Yahoo! is losing money on email data storage. They want your advice: should they start charging users for email? Why or why not?”

Update: The study guide distributed in class is available here.

MIS5001 Final Exam Study Guide

Here are guidelines for the group project presentation. Post any questions in comments or send me an email.

Objective

The goal of your presentation is to address the following questions:

(A) What business problem are you solving?

(B) How do you propose solving it?

(C) How will the solution provide business value?

Pretend that the audience (your fellow classmates) will be making an up-or-down decision on whether or not to fund the proposed project. Remember that the audience has not read any of your individual or group projects.

Format

• Your presentation should be 15-17 minutes long and will be followed by up 3-5 minutes for questions (and then 1 minute between presentations).
• It is highly recommended that you practice your presentation so you can be sure you can efficiently and effectively get through all of the required material in the allotted time!
• One or more group members may deliver the presentation, but all group members are expect to be present and available to answer questions about the project. During the presentation all group members should join together with the presenter at the front of the room.
• Please put any electronic materials on a memory stick or post to the web in a readily available location.
• Although these will be considered formal presentations, there is no dress code. Wear whatever you are most comfortable in for making a convincing presentation to fellow students.

Evaluation and Feedback

• Presentations will be evaluated by these criteria:

1. Content: Clear description of business problem
2. Content: Effective justification of business value
3. Content: Convincing discussion of project feasibility
4. Presentation: Delivery and pacing
5. Presentation: Connection with audience
6. Overall Impression: Assessment of project

• To facilitate active participation by audience members, everyone will complete and turn-in evaluation forms for the other group presentations. The completed evaluation forms will be used to anonymously inform additional constructive feedback. They will not be used to determine a grade.

This Onion video pokes fun at our dependence on the Internet as well as most people’s lack of computer backups.

If your primary personal or work computer crashed, how easily could you pick up the pieces? Would you be able to get back to work easily? What’s your backup plan?

My presentation from Monday night

Key slides from Mathias Kirchmer’s presentation last week: Business Process Management.

Check out this article on “Blurring the Line Between Apps and Books: Stephen Elliott’s memoir is being published as an app for iPhones and iPads, allowing readers to interact with the author.”

Update: As Kristin points out in the comments, it’s hard to tell from the NYTimes article exactly what Stephen Elliott’s iPhone app does. Here’s the description from the iTunes catalog (price: $14.99):

The official iPad/iPhone app for The Adderall Diaries. Includes the entire book with a proprietary reader. Features a dedicated discussion board to talk with other readers. It’s like a book that includes a book club. Also features extras like Stephen Elliott’s book tour diary, an RSS feed for news and events, a video interview with the author, and more.

The Adderall Diaries is at once a gripping account of a murder trial and a scorching investigation of the self. Tough, tender, and unflinchingly honest, it is the breakout book by one of the most daring writers of his generation. Called genius by both Vanity Fair and The San Francisco Chronicle, and the best book of the year by Timeout New York, The Adderall Diaries is now available in this deluxe ebook edition. Includes a discussion section to interact with other readers, extra material not included in the book, and an updated feed with news and events.

App built by Electric Literature

Question: If you were marketing a book, how would you decide if you should create an App for it?

Tonight’s presentation

More about Business Process Management Lifecycle:

• Description at SAP of Process Management Lifecycle
• Example of a process diagram. Another example. A production diagram.
• An example of a business process model (from a formal modeling tool).

I’ve gotten this question twice now, so I think I had best go ahead and clarify it for everyone at the same time.

The reading, The Petabyte Age: Because More Isn’t Just More — More Is Different, http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/16-07/pb_intro, is indeed very short. The really important part is the illustration. That’s what I want you to absorb as a key point and to reflect upon.

You do not need to read any of the articles in that special section of Wired, though if you are curious there are quite a few interesting articles there.

On Nov. 15 we are quite fortunate to have an exciting guest speaker visiting our class.

After a brief discussion of this weeks assigned reading (the case and other reading), Dr. Mathias Kirchmer will be joining us for the remainder of the class to speak on the topic “Value-driven Business Process Management.”

Mathias Kirchmer is Executive Partner for Process Excellence at Accenture

He leads the global Business Process Lifecycle Management Practice, as well as the program for the development of Accenture’s Business Process Reference Model Repository across industries and functional areas.  Before joining Accenture, Dr. Kirchmer had been for almost 18 years with IDS Scheer, a leading provider of business process excellence solutions, known for its BPM Software, the ARIS Platform. He was member of the Extended Executive Board. During his professional career Dr. Kirchmer has developed deep knowledge in approaches, methods and software for the design, implementation, execution and controlling of business processes. He has applied this know how in companies of various sizes around the world. Dr. Kirchmer is an affiliated faculty member of the Program for Organizational Dynamics of the University of Pennsylvania as well as a faculty member of the Business School of Widener University, Philadelphia. In 2004 he won a research fellowship from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. He is the author of numerous publications, including five books. The last one is entitled “High Performance Through Process Excellence: From Strategy to Operations” and was published in November 2008. Dr. Kirchmer holds a PhD in Information Systems from Saarbruecken University (Germany), a Master in Business Administration and Computer Science (“Wirtschaftsingenieur”) from Karlsruhe Technical University (Germany) and a Master in Economics from Paris-IX-Dauphine University (France).

Photo credit: woodleywonderworks

Skim through this Wikipedia article on business process reengineering. Thinking about organizations that you’ve worked for…

(1) What’s an example of a business process that was either: (a) reengineered or (b) in need of reengineering.

(2) What were (or are) the major challenges in reengineering the process? Was IT a help or hinderance?